Violet Winspear

about the author

Violet Winspear was born on 28 April 1928 in London, England. She worked in a factory since 1942, when in 1961 she sold her first romance novels to Mills & Boon. In 1963, she became a full-time writer. She wrote from her home in the south-east England, that she never left, but she meticulously researched her far-flung settings at the local library. She never married, and had no children, but she inspired her nephew Jonathan to write. Violet died at January 1989 after a long battle with cancer.

She said: "The real aim of romance is to provide escape and entertainment", but she created a maelstrom when in 1970 she commented: "I get my heroes so that they're lean and hard muscled and mocking and sardonic and tough and tigerish and single, of course. Oh and they've got to be rich and then I make it that they're only cynical and smooth on the surface. But underneath they're well, you know, sort of lost and lonely. In need of love but, when roused, capable of breathtaking passion and potency. Most of my heroes, well all of them really, are like that. They frighten but fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with." The comment, that they were 'capable of rape' caused uproar and lead to her receiving hate mail. Interestingly, she railed against the work of authors such as Harold Robbins. Winspear's forte was creating and sustaining sexual tension between her characters while building fantastic worlds.

Book List

List Format:

69titles

69titles

A compelling story of powerful passions, bound by a tradition of honor. Threatened by a legacy of deceit. A reclusive author, a tragic death and a turbulent family sweep a young editor into a maelstrom of passion and danger. Caught between the pride ...

Had she no say in her destiny?
Lorne couldn't quite believe that her grandfather had practically pawned her in order to hold on to his precious LOasis, the plantation that lay on Razul al Kebir's land.
"You've no idea how ruthless men can be in...

THE TWO SISTERS LOOKED ASTONISHINGLY ALIKE
But that was where the similarities ended. For although Angelica was sensual and sophisticated, Jorja was gentle and meek, accustomed only to the sheltered life in her father's quiet vicarage.
And now Renz...

When they met, Karim el Khalid de Torres called it Fate...
Mesmerized by his strong personal magnetism, Linda Layne had gone along with the events that followed their meeting as if in a dream. A delicious, romantic dream!
But now that the clo...

As far as Melly could see, she and the worldly Jourdan Lanier had nothing in common, except the rare blood that flowed in their veins. Yet Jourdan wanted Melly was his wife, and not because she'd just saved his life.
Melly was exactly the woman J...

Forced to marry the one man she hated!
Two years ago, Paris Apollonaris had taken Bliss St. Cyr's ancestral home, Cathlamet, when her father couldn't pay his gambling debts. Paris had proposed to her then, either to soothe his guilty conscience or...

Their marriage made a mockery of love.
Her austere guardian, Jason Devrel seemed the epitome of genuine charm. Only Dinah Stacey recognized the menace beneath all the culture and breeding.
On Halloween night, Dinah had opposed her guardian's ...

They had married for all the wrong reasons
They were two strangers fulfilling a commitment conceived for them years before. But Glenda was an impostor, and in spite of promises made to her dying mother, she sought to free herself from the web of d...

A crisis plunged her into turmoil
Dominique Davis had to set aside her plans to enter the convent when she heard the shocking news: her sister, Candy, was partially paralyzed and needed her desperately.
Alarmed, she set out at once for Italy to...

Would he misconstrue her love as pity?
Angela Hart's love for Enrique de Zaldo was only intensified by the tragedy of his blindness. She had loved him all her life.
Called by his Spanish father to their Mediterranean island, Angie hoped to nur...

The woman was an undying legend
When Jane agreed to the ruse, she had no idea what she would be up against.
She agreed to pretend to be Baron Pagan Pentrevah's wife because he needed help. He was a man driven by the consuming memory of Roxanne,...

Love was forbidden in her chosen life
Iris Ardath, abandoned in infancy, had spent all her life behind the convent walls of St. Clare's. She fully expected that she would take the veil and spend her years safe in the quiet cloisters.
But Mothe...

Diane knew what Khasim had in mind
And the prospect was terrifying. The fact that she'd brought it on herself by foolishly riding alone in the Sahara desert, didn't help.
After Diane Ronay was thrown from her bolting horse, Sheik Khasim ben Har...

The memory of the night haunted her
Julia Van Holden hated Rome Demario for what he had done to her, but she couldn't erase him from her thoughts. Because of one brief, passionate moment of revenge he had taken her innocence--and had given her his...

"You will stay and marry my brother." Julio Valdez spoke contemptuously. "Because of you, my brother, Ramon, is now a paralyzed cripple, with very little to live for. But he wants you, so he shall have you."
Julio's hard, unyielding expression war...

"When I have finished with you, sweet icy girl," Stefan said grimly, "Damoskinos will have the anguish of knowing that you have endured the ultimate at my hands!"
Alice Sheldon was trapped on a lonely island in the Aegean, kidnapped by a man inte...

One night in Rome Donna Lovelace's life suddenly changed. That night she fell in love with a mysterious stranger.
But Rick Lordetti was a hired bodyguard, and he already belonged to her new employer, Serafina Neri, the beautiful retired actress wh...

Trapped in the middle of the African jungle while a war raged round her, Eve Tarrant knew that all that stood between her and a singularly unpleasant fate at the hands of African revolutionaries was the tough mercenary Major Wade O'Mara. Thrown toget...

She wasn't the woman he thought her to be
Moonside had become like a home now to Wilda. The thought of once again starting a new life elsewhere filled her with panic. For she knew that if Damien told her employer about her past she would be thrown...

What, Merlin Lakeside wondered, could she do with the love building inside her? There seemed no way to release it except by just being here... hoping that Paul van Setan wouldn't realize she was the person he had cause to hate.
What would she do ...

"I am probably everything you never wanted in a man," Don Cortez said firmly. "But fate plays a role in all our lives and whether you wanted me or not, mi vida, you have me."
Arabel was not really shocked by what he had revealed about himself. He ...

"I might have known," Sarah whispered to herself. There was no longer a shadow of doubt in her mind that this man was Zain Hassan bin Hamid, high lord of this place, and he had let her confess to him some of the most indiscreet remarks of her life!
...

Carol was stunned by his proposal. For five years she had stood alone and fought for Teri, but now-- now a man offered to share that burden. It was a terrible temptation just to give in and not fight any more.
"How can I be sure you don't want som...

That one hour with Raf Ventura had been more distressing to Dina Caslyn than anything that had ever befallen her.
His words returned mockingly to her: "You're a protegee for your godmother to be proud of. In a few more years the coatings of ice wi...

When her flighty cousin Penela jilted the Greek tycoon Heraklion Mavrakis at the last moment, Fenella took her place at the wedding and married Lion herself, under false pretenses. When he discovered her deception he was at first, naturally enough, f...

It was all Woolf's fault -- he had no right to force her into a false engagement. Before he came to Silversea, life had been uncomplicated, and if there were tense undercurrents, Cathy had not been pulled into them.
"You'd have to drag me to the a...

"Toni," he said, "I can't just let you go out into the world, so that you can give your hungry little heart to the next rotter who comes along. Nor can I take you eternally sailing as my cabin boy. I can only make you my wife...."
With every parti...

Coming to life again was painful. For over two years Destine had been in a sort of frozen limbo -- a composed, efficient woman whose life had seemed to stop with the death of her husband on their wedding day.
Now, like it or not -- in the Casera...

A place out of a dream - but to Persepha it seemed more like a nightmare from which she couldn't awake...
A place to love - had she loved Don Eduardo, her husband. But Persepha didn't even know him and so the beautiful Hacienda Ruy seemed like a ...

On the face of it, Grace Wilde had every-thing -- youth, beauty, wealth, and a title. All that goes to make up the life of a society queen was hers; only one thing was lacking -- happiness.
For the gay society life was none of her seeking; she had...

Jaine Dare was, to say the least of it, swamped by her spectacular relatives -- her aunt, a spoilt darling of the London stage, and her equally glamorous cousin Laraine. She was accustomed always to take back place to them and making herself useful i...

Was this she had longed for?
Mrs. Amy du Mont was a rich, vulgar social climber. No wonder quiet, well-bred Altar Garret resented being trapped in her employ.
It was through Mrs. du Mont's efforts that they met the imposing Spanish grandee, the...

Ruan was nineteen, shy and unsophisticated, and always overshadowed by her far more glamorous and assured stepsister -- just about the most unlikely candidate, it would seem, for the attention of Tarquin Powers, the handsome and celebrated actor.
...

It annoyed Doctor Avery Chase to hear his cousin Robert denounce as a phoney the frightened young girl found late one night sitting on the doorstep of Chase, the family home on the edge of the Devon moors.
But Robert was convinced that the girl wh...

Considering that she was an orphan with no background and no special aptitude for any-thing, Janna Smith seemed to be doing very nicely for herself, here on the glamorous Cote d'Azur as secretary/companion to a well-known lady author. But for secreta...

Eden loved safe, but Gale wanted him
The two sisters were aptly named. Gale was wild, turbulent and demanding; Eden was the quiet one, gentle and kind.
Gale found the money, power and luxury she wanted when she met wealthy, handsome and magneti...

When Della Neve went on a Mediterranean cruise she wanted a rest, not a holiday romance. Her future was already bound to Marsh Graham, the fiance to whom she owed everything -- who had brought her up, moulded her into a great star, and who loved her ...

A woman's mind is a jungle
Heron Brooks recalled Edwin Trequair's words and what he'd said afterward. "It's the one jungle in which a man should never get lost."
Why, then, had he asked her to marry him? And why had she accepted? True, she'd be...

Marny Lester was sufficiently well off not to have to work if she didn't want to, but an aimless, leisurely life in the country was not really enough for her, and when a friend recommended her for the post of secretary to a celebrated osteopath in hi...

Yvain Pilgrim had been named after a character in a fairy-tale, a maiden who had been assisted by a lion in her fight against a dragon -- and in her present situation she could not help feeling that the fairy-tale had come true.
Shipwrecked while ...

Ravena Brenin dearly loved the kindly guardian who had brought her up -- and she loved his son Rhodri Brenin even more.
But she was marrying a virtual stranger, the forbidding Sardinian Mark di Curzio, a man for whom she felt nothing but apprehens...

Lise supposed she should be grateful to the imperious Conde Leandro de Marco Reyes for helping her out of an awkward situation -- but not so grateful that she would pretend to be his fiancee. A domineering conquistador-type Spanish nobleman was not h...

She didn't know the facts of her own life. But somehow Ynis Raiford realized that she didn't quite belong in Gard's world. Gard St. Clair, embittered by the accident that had ended his career, was as mysterious and wild as his house on the stormy Cor...

Rea Glyn went to the coast for a quiet visit with no thought of marriage in her mind, but soon she found herself married to a man she had never met before and pledged to play her part in a fantastic game of "let's pretend."
Burke bent over the bab...

The Savidges of Dragon Bay were as wild and savage as their name, bitter and totally unable to love. But Kara Stephanos did not realize this until after she had married Lucan Savidge....
Pryde sat in a wheelchair, yet he made it look like a thron...

Margo Jones had loved Michel, although in the end he married someone else. When five years later he died she found herself going to the French chateau of Satancourt to look after his son. There, Margo met Paul Cassalis, Michel's inscrutable brother, ...

Domini had married Paul Stephanos to save her family from disgrace and exposure. Now she fought against the warm feelings she had for her husband because of the bitter knowledge that he had tricked and deceived her. When Barry Sothern, her old love, ...

Chrys didn't trust men, and she had no intention of allowing herself to fall in love with one and sacrifice her career as a result.
Anton de Casenove--was just the type of man she most needed to be on her guard against -- half Russian prince, half...

It was through an unlucky accident that young Romy Ellyn had been caught in a compromising situation with Don Delgado de Avarado y Valcazar - who thereupon insisted that to save her reputation and his, she must agree to become his fiancee, and whiske...

Rosary was confident that she was going to make a good job of tutoring a young Portuguese girl, but Gisela's father, the imposing Dom Duarte de Montqueiro Ardo, thought otherwise. Rosary was to young and inexperienced, he decreed.
And that was not ...

In an effort to forget her grief over her beloved Dion's death, Hebe had gone to the lovely Greek island of Petra.
There she met Nikos Stephanos, a man as different from Dion as he could possibly be. But a dark tragedy lay over Nikos's life. Would...

Sabrina Muir's feeling for her blind patient, Douglas Saint-Sarne, were deep, and she was aware of his own growing interest in herself.
But Sabrina was no beauty. What if Douglas recovered his sight? Wouldn't he go straight back to his old love, th...

Joanna Dowling knew she was going to love the job of home help at Raintree Valley in Northern Australia. The boss, Adam Corraine, considered she would do better working in some smart boutique in the big city, and gave her just two weeks in which to p...

When the handsome Baron Breck von Linden offered Siran a job which involved staying at his fairy-tale home, the Castle of the Seven Lilacs, she knew that it was attraction between herself and the Baron that was taking her there.
But Breck's younger...

Elvi wanted all of Rodari's love
Elvina Lloyd knew why she'd married Rodari Fortunato: she loved him. She was not at all certain why he had made her his wife.
Nevertheless, he had married her, a quiet little English nurse he scarcely knew, and ...

Shipwrecked on the remote Brazilian island of Janeleza, Morvenna found herself pitched into the situation that for one month -- until the next steamer came along -- she must accept the authority of the island's autocratic overlord, Roque de Braz Fe...

Had Ricki O'Neill been impulsive, allowing her wandering Irish spirit to take her to Spain alone? Why, too, should Don Arturo de Cazalet be looking for a physicotherapist at just that time? Don Arturo had engaged young Ricki to look after his cripple...

"You will go to a lonely place in the sands of the desert," the Arab diviner warned Lorna, "pursued by a man with dark hair."
Lorna scoffed. Her plans would not be spoiled by foolish tales.
But she was wrong. For now she found herself held capt...

Although Faye Meryon was as English as they come, she had spent much of her life in Portugal; she had been educated there - and she was delighted, after an absence of years, to meet again her old school friend Estella Silveira, and to be invited to ...

Temple Lane had gone out to the Java Seas to marry her fiance, but all her plans fell through when she found someone else had taken her place. In her desperate endeavours to get away from the situation, she met the Dutchman Ryk van Helden -and prompt...

"In many respects the desert is like a woman. Anything might crop up in the desert, as in a relationship with a woman But a man can enjoy the desert without getting involved emotionally." Duane Hunter's words made it quite plain to Roslyn Brant that ...

Don Rafael de Domerique had a typical Spanish attitude towards the amount of freedom he thought women should have, while Vanessa's outlook was thoroughly Anglo-Saxon. This was all right--until Vanessa fell in love with Rafael....

What a fascinating man Erik Norlund was, Jill thought. She couldn't be sure which facet of him came uppermost -- the smooth tycoon, or the more rugged characteristics of his Viking forebears.
She got her chance to find out when Erik offered her ...

"I -- I sensed something RUTHLESS about him. He moulds people to his tastes, and he makes them submit whether they want to or not," Lauri described Maxim di Corte to her aunt Pat when, as an inexperienced girl, Lauri first joined Maxim's famous cor...

After the tragic death of her fiancée David, all Lyn Gilmour wanted was to get as far away from her old life as possible and the offer of a temporary job as nanny to a seven-year-old girl in California seemed just what she was looking for. Monterey ...

Tina Manson married John Trecarrel in haste -- and had plenty of time to repent at leisure when she found that she not only had to compete with the memory of his beautiful first wife, but to accept that he was also attracted to Joanna's equally beaut...

Morocco. When Madeline Page realized that Victor Tourelle was not the hard, insensitive man he pretended to be, she fell in love with him - in spite of his guarded, disapproving manner. But hadn't he warned her that friendship between them was imposs...

Nurse Fern Heatherly had travelled from England to California with a patient and then decided she might as well stay for a while, so she accepted the job of looking after the elderly Miss Kingdom. Her troubles began when Miss Kingdom's nephew was see...

"Do yourself a favor," Lew said. "Forget me."
Fay had worked desperately in the train crash--using all her nurse's knowledge. Even Lew didn't know all she'd gone through that night to save his life.
But what could she do now to save their marri...